


and the angels sing an old hank williams song

by sundancekid



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Dementia, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-01
Updated: 2008-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-26 06:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundancekid/pseuds/sundancekid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt realizes something's wrong with Grandma on Thanksgiving, the year he's in eighth grade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the angels sing an old hank williams song

**Author's Note:**

> [This is what hooked me on FNL in the first place.](http://sundancekid.livejournal.com/482110.html) Thanks to [](http://wordplay.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://wordplay.livejournal.com/)**wordplay** for looking this over.  <3 Title is from the song "Time Marches On" by Tracy Lawrence.

Matt realizes something's wrong with Grandma on Thanksgiving, the year he's in eighth grade. She puts the turkey in the oven and forgets all about it. Matt comes home from his run and the kitchen's smoking; Grandma hasn't noticed. Matt starts hollering, grabs the fire extinguisher, and Grandma doesn't say anything. He's mostly thinking about putting out the damn fire, but he glances over at Grandma, and she just stands there in the doorway, eyes glazed, mouth slack, like she isn't even seeing him, seeing her kitchen on fire.

They eat Taco Bell for Thanksgiving that year.

In retrospect, there were signs before that. Matt would come over and she'd forget that he was supposed to, she'd call and call right back ten minutes later, she showed up to a football game in mismatched socks and three curlers still in her hair. They just laughed about it, never thinking it was only the beginning, never thinking it was only gonna get worse. Maybe if Mom had still been around, but she was already living in Oklahoma with Cal by then, nothing but Christmas cards and calls on his birthday, hardly a dent in his life. But Dad never noticed anything and Matt, Matt was just a kid. He and Landry were working out to try out for high school football, and English was really hard that year, and he was mowing lawns to make money, and Cara Becker kept smiling at him over the lab table in Biology. He didn't notice much.

Dad ships back out after Christmas, freshman year, and Matt goes to live with Grandma. By Valentine's Matt's making dinner most days, and by the time school ends in May he's paying all the bills. He gets the job at Alamo Freeze _because_ he's started doing the bills. When he sees on the news that they're changing Medicare plans he has nightmares for a week. Landry's the only one who knows what it's really like, but then, Landry doesn't know much.

Some days it's easier; some days she laughs and teases him and they watch Cowboys games, yelling at the refs. Some days she puts on lipstick and drives herself to his games and cheers in the stands and seems really happy.

But some days she pretends to take her medicine but really she drops it into the crevice of her armchair. Some days she cries and cries and just won't _stop_ , or she thinks Grandpa's still alive, or she goes to the grocery store and Matt gets a call from the manager. Mr. Brown knows the way to their house, now.

Matt'll never forget the look on Coach's face, when he came to pick Matt up the first time. Their house is small, and it's kinda shabby, yeah, and the way Coach looked at it -- the piles of paper, the dishes in the sink, the coupons he'd cut out of the paper, all sitting on the counter. What was so great about Coach, though, is that he didn't see white trash, he didn't see an old lady gone crazy, he saw the work that went into it, the work that went into their lives. He ate the cake that was storebought two months ago and thanked her and never said a word about it, but Matt thinks that maybe Coach really got it.

Landry tells him all about how they drove her to state, about how what was supposed to be three hours of quality time with Tyra turned into four and a half hours with the Collette women and Grandma Saracen, "and you know I like your grandma, man, you know I do, but I was just really countin' on not having to chauffeur her to Dallas, you know? She's not exactly an aphrodisiac." Matt has to hit Landry for that, on principle.

Christmas his junior year, Matt's not really planning to make much of an effort. But the day of his last final, he comes home and Grandma's really clear, really there, and she says, "Let's go buy a tree." So they drive to Home Depot and pick out a Douglas fir, and Grandma claps when Matt and the guy who works at Home Depot get it tied to the car. They drive home and Grandma makes Matt listen to all the stories about the years he made the different ornaments -- "this one, you made in kindergarten, and you kissed my cheek when you gave it to me, you were so little back then," she says, waving a construction paper reindeer. Matt's heard all the stories before, but this isn't like when she forgets; these are stories you're supposed to hear too many times. She finds a cassette tape of Christmas songs, and Matt brings his stereo out of his room, and they wrap the DVDs they're sending to Iraq while Bing Crosby sings about white Christmases, something Matt's never seen.

Matt gets tape wrapped all around his hand, and Grandma laughs and hangs another pipe cleaner snowman on the tree.


End file.
